


Truths shared by a stranger

by sparrow30



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Conversations in the snow, Eskel is a Good Bro, Gen, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28445766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow30/pseuds/sparrow30
Summary: Jaskier stumbles across a Witcher making camp in the forest, but it isn't the Witcher that's been haunting his every waking thought.Conversations are had, and truths come out.orEskel is a good brother, and he's tired of Geralt's shit.
Relationships: Eskel & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 15
Kudos: 658
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge Winter 2020





	Truths shared by a stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Written for The Witcher Flash Fic Winter Challenge!

Jaskier cursed under his breath, tugging his cloak tightly around himself in a futile attempt to protect against the icy gust of wind that came howling through the trees. He should have waited for the storm everyone said was coming to pass before venturing out on the road again, but he’d had itchy feet, and never enough common sense, and now here he was in the middle of a forest about to meet his maker buried in snow.

If Geralt could see him now…

With a brisk shake of his head Jaskier stopped that train of thought right in its tracks. The Witcher was strictly off limits in his brain, and had been ever since their catastrophic parting on the mountain over a year ago.

It wasn’t that Jaskier had never spent a year travelling apart from Geralt, indeed it wasn’t uncommon for them to roam independently for two or three years at a time. But he’d never spent so long away from the Witcher having parted on bad terms. 

Jaskier had always assumed that theirs was a mutual arrangement, and that for all his huffing and blustering Geralt gained as much from said arrangement as he did. But their parting conversation had thrown the past twenty years of companionship into doubt, and Jaskier couldn’t even think about the Witcher without something dark and ugly churning in his gut.

Nuisance, unwanted,  _ unloved _ .

The telltale crackle of firewood drew him from his increasingly morbid thoughts, and he turned eagerly towards the source of the noise. At least one God was looking out for him, it seemed; while he was perfectly capable of making his own camp, a pre-made one would be infinitely more preferable.

He crept through the trees until he could see the gentle flicking of a campfire in the middle of a clearing, making sure to take the time to scout out the camp before making his presence known. He was cold, but not an idiot, and he’d rather take his chances against the elements than a pack of bandits. 

Luckily only one traveler sat by the fire, wrapped in a thick fur-lined cape with a hood that blocked his face from view. Jaskier could work with that. Taking care to step on a number of loudly cracking twigs - experience had taught him that catching a stranger by surprise was a surefire way to end up with a knife at his throat - he made his way out of the cover of trees and into the clearing.

“Hail and well met, fellow traveler,” he said with forced joviality. “Might you have room at your fire for a weary bard? I could repay you with an evening of musical entertainment, if you so wish.”

The traveler slowly turned towards Jaskier, and Jaskier felt his stomach drop into his feet as his gaze fell upon slitted yellow cat eyes, and an all-too distinctive Wolf medallion.

For a short, heart-stopping moment Jaskier’s only thought was  _ Geralt _ . But then his brain caught up with his eyes and he took in the dark hair framing the traveler’s face, and a large scar running from left eye to right jawline. Not Geralt, but another Witcher.

“Fuck,” he breathed, wincing at the small grimace that twitched at the Witcher’s mouth in response. Curse them and their enhanced hearing.

“Please, join me,” the Witcher said, lowering his hood as he gestured to a log on the other side of the campfire. “I assure you that whatever tales you’ve heard about my kind, you’re perfectly safe.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant,” Jaskier rushed to reassure this stranger he was nothing like the small-minded folk who had chased him and Geralt out of town time and time again. “I only...well...I believe I know one of your brethren.”

The Witcher paused, eyes sweeping down Jaskier’s form and back up to his face again, and Jaskier tried not to fidget under the scrutiny. 

“You’re the bard that travels with Geralt.”

Jaskier sketched a bow, choosing not to correct the Witcher’s use of present tense. “Julian Alfred Pankratz at your service.”

“I don’t remember Geralt using such a long name.”

Jaskier bit his lip to stop himself from grinning like a madman at knowledge that  _ Geralt had actually talked about him _ . “Jaskier, for short.”

“Well, Jaskier-for-short,” the Witcher replied with a grin, holding out a hand to shake. “The name’s Eskel.”

Jaskier stepped forward to shake Eskel’s hand, noting that his grip was firm but not crushing in the way that some men tried to exert their dominance. “You’ll have to forgive me, Geralt didn’t talk much - or at all really - about other members of his guild.”

“School,” Eskel corrected, waving for Jaskier to take a seat. “We’re the school of the Wolves.” 

  
“Fascinating,” Jaskier replied eagerly, sitting down and leaning forward to warm his hands by the fire. It seemed that communicating in grunts was a Geralt thing, not a Witcher thing like he’d so long assumed.

“You’re not travelling with him now though?” Eskel asked, stoking the fire with a long stick and sending sparks cascading towards the heavens.

Jaskier winced, wondering how best to reveal that he’d offended Geralt so badly the Witcher had banished him from his sight. Eskel seemed easy-going enough so far, but maybe that wouldn’t continue when he discovered that Jaskier had wronged his brother most grievously.

“We, ah, parted ways. Autumn of last year,” he finally settled on, hoping that would be enough.

There was a moment’s pause, and then Eskel’s eyebrows raised in realization. “So you’re the reason he was in such a foul mood the whole of last winter.”

“Well I mean...I would argue that’s not quite…” Jaskier stumbled over his words, but Eskel interrupted with a casual wave of his hand.

“Relax, I know my brother well enough to know that whatever had him moping around Kaer Morhen was entirely his fault. The guilt was rolling off him so strong he stunk up the entire keep. Lambert was furious.”

“He...it...Lambert?” Jaskier asked weakly, latching onto the only thing in that sentence that didn’t upend his entire world view.

“Our other brother,” Eskel explained easily, “He’s younger than Geralt and I - and honestly a bit of a hothead - but he means well enough.”

Jaskier blinked slowly, trying to keep up. He’d learnt more about Geralt’s family in a matter of minutes from this practical stranger than he’d gleaned from Geralt in almost two decades of friendship. It was a touch overwhelming.

Eskel cocked his head appraisingly, clearly noticing Jaskier’s stunned expression. “Geralt didn’t tell you any of this.”

“Geralt, he, well that is to say,” Jaskier tried to find the right words that wouldn’t paint Geralt in too unfavourable a light. “I don’t think he held me highly enough in his esteem to share such personal information.”

Eskel snorted. “My brother. Is an idiot.” 

Jaskier found himself starting to wonder if he had actually passed out in the snow and this was all a rather vivid hallucination.

Eskel sighed heavily, the kind of sigh that can only come from an exasperated older sibling. “Look, Jaskier, Geralt doesn’t like to share his feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have them. In fact I think it’s  _ because _ he feels so deeply that he keeps them locked up so tight inside of him, scared that someone will take them away from him if he makes them known.”

There wasn’t much Jaskier could say to that, so he just nodded. That seemed to be enough for Eskel, who carried on talking.

“He and I, we’ve been walking The Path for almost a century now. It’s a hard path to walk, thankless, or at least it was until that song of yours had townsfolk flinging coppers at me instead of old food.” He paused to grin wryly at Jaskier, who couldn’t help but smile back. It was nice, he thought, that his quest to rehabilitate Geralt’s image had helped others as well.

“My point is that we do it because it’s what we were made for, but after a while it starts to eat away at you, chip away at your soul. Geralt’s soul, it chips the easiest of us all, and he has no idea how to handle it.”

“He was so mad, the last time we spoke,” Jaskier couldn’t help but admit, his voice barely a whisper above the noises of the fire. “He said that everything that was shit in his life was because of me. That it was my fault.”

Eskel buried his face in his hands with a groan, and something that sounded distinctly like a curse. “Gods save me from that knuckleheaded-” he cut himself off as he sat back upright again. “I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that he meant the absolute opposite.”

Jaskier can’t help but laugh derisively at that. “You probably wouldn’t say that if you’d been subjected to me for as long as he had.”

“Jaskier,” Eskel said firmly. “I’ve watched my brother return from The Path year after year, and I can tell the ones he’s spent with you and the ones he’s spent alone. Last winter, that was the worst I’ve seen him since his first year on The Path.”

“He was probably just missing Yennefer.” The sorceress's name stuck in his throat, sharp and cloying, but he had to say it, to make Eskel see.

“She was there, they talked, it didn’t help. She’s not the one he’s hurting for.” 

Jaskier looked up in shock, half expecting to see the joke written across Eskel’s face, but the Witcher’s eyes were nothing but serious. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

For a while there was silence between them, just the crackling of the fire for company. Eventually Eskel huffed, as if coming to a decision.

“Look, if you never wanted to see Geralt again I wouldn’t blame you. Honestly you have every right to walk away and forget about him entirely-” Jaskier huffed a self-deprecating laugh at that. As if he could ever forget about Geralt in all the years he lived “-but we arranged to meet at the bottom of the Kaedwan mountains in two weeks, before making our way up to Kaer Morhen for the winter together. Like I say, it’s your decision, but I think it would help for the two of you to talk.”

Jaskier pondered Eskel’s words, his desire to see Geralt again warring with his (admittedly limited) self preservation instincts. It had been hard, so hard to get over Geralt the first time. He still wasn’t sure he was entirely there, and he knew there was no way he could do it a second time.

Eskel gave a small shrug, intentionally casual. “If nothing else, it would be nice to get to know you better, we do have you to thank for our improved reputation across the Continent after all.” 

Jaskier couldn’t help laugh at that, the knot of tension loosening in his chest and banishing the conflict that had been starting to build inside of him.

Of course he was going to travel with Eskel. Of course he was going to fling himself back into the fray. Of course he was going to force Geralt to see sense, and of course they would travel together again. At the end of the day it wasn’t even a choice, really, it was an inevitability.

“Well when you put it like that, how on earth could I refuse?”


End file.
